The 950/990 and, soon, the 1190 all address the “Adventouring market” (KTM’s terminology, not mine).

At the other end, KTM has done a remarkably good job of offering for sale purpose-built production models tailored for each and every micro-slice of the competitive dirt bike and dualsport market segments. (To me, this is the 70% segment to which you refer)

But they offer no single-cylinder, long distance (>200 miles between gas), off-road adventure/rally model that exploits their success at the Dakar.

So, in this sense, their investment in the Dakar is simply wasted or, at very least, under utilized. Applying the Dakar moniker to the big twins is little more than marketing hyperbole and I posit that the true dirt bike market segments simply don’t care much about the Dakar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wpbarlow

While I agree with that statement, you seem to imply that that the 1190 will be a less capable off pavement bike than the 9x0…

Re-reading my comment, I can see why you might have gotten that impression, but I really didn’t mean to imply anything about their relative off-pavement capabilities…

If anything, I would have implied that the 1190 will almost certainly be better on-pavement than the 9x0 bikes.

Off-pavement, I suspect the 1190 and 9x0 will be pretty much in the same ballpark in all but the more technical off-road sections.